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New Civil Liberties Alliance Challenges IRS Collection Of Private Crypto Investment Data

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If you’re a bitcoin trader or investor, you’ve probably traded on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges and, for the most part, trusted that those exchanges are keeping your data secure from unlawful data collection just like a bank or credit card provider would. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

On July 15, 2020 (Tax Day this year), New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed a lawsuit on behalf of James Harper against the IRS, challenging the agency’s unlawful collection of private cryptocurrency information.

Harper decided to take this action against the IRS after he received a letter from the agency in August 2019 as part of its ongoing effort to alert taxpayers about crypto tax filing requirements. Harper wants to hold the IRS accountable for violating his privacy and identifying him as a cryptocurrency holder.

According to a case summary, “NCLA represents Mr. Harper before the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Mr. Harper’s ‘crime’? Holding a bitcoin wallet. The lawsuit argues that the IRS has acquired the unbridled power to demand and seize Americans’ private financial information from third parties without any judicial process in defiance of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and statutory protections.”

Some of you reading may even know Harper. He bought his first bitcoin in 2013 and has been an active member of the community ever since. According to the case, he has always paid his applicable taxes and reported his bitcoin trades. Like many of you reading, Harper used a few different cryptocurrency exchanges to conduct his trades, all of which contractually promised to protect his private information. 

Last year, Harper became one of 10,000 crypto holders to suddenly receive a letter from the IRS stating that it had obtained his financial records from the cryptocurrency exchanges without any particular suspicious of wrongdoing. Additionally, the IRS failed to meet its statutory duty to give Harper advanced notice and an opportunity to challenge the seizing of his crypto data.

I’m not a lawyer, but that doesn’t sound like something the IRS should be able to do. I thought the government needed a subpoena to obtain private information. Is it able to obtain any data it wants without a warrant? So, what does a lawyer on the case think of this?

“There’s no IRS exception to the Bill of Rights,” Adi Dynar, a member of the litigation counsel, told me. “The people who own cryptocurrency do not thereby give up the right to secure the privacy of their private financial information. No federal official should obtain private financial information without giving its owner adequate notice and opportunity to contest. Especially so when the federal official has not obtained a valid subpoena or warrant from a court. Otherwise, it is a short, slippery slope into an unfettered surveillance state.”

When I sign up for a cryptocurrency exchange account, or any other service with a third party that contains private information and is contractually obligated to protect my private information, that is exactly what I expect that third party to do. It’s frightening to see the third party and government sidestepping our contractual rights and law. This makes me wonder what other information is being collected by government agencies without a warrant. Unfortunately, it seems like we’re much further down the path of a surveillance state than most realize. I hope that NCLA’s lawsuit will right this wrong and protect people from unlawful searches and seizures in the future.

Given NCLA’s close alignment with the cryptocurrency community, it has recently started to accept cryptocurrency to help fund this case. Your donation of bitcoin or other cryptocurrency to the New Civil Liberties Alliance is one of the most tax efficient ways to stop government overreach. Learn more and support it in its case against the IRS here.

This is a guest post by Alex Wilson, co-founder of The Giving Block. Opinions expressed are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

The post New Civil Liberties Alliance Challenges IRS Collection Of Private Crypto Investment Data appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Political Prosecution Of Julian Assange Calls For Nonviolent Cryptographic Defense

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On October 1, 2020, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey in London came to an end. What unfolded during 18 days of hearings was a Kafkaesque show-trial of a free press, where Assange was placed behind a glass case, unable to have access to his lawyers. This is a war against journalism, and an empire’s assaults on the rights to the self-determination of people around the world.

For so long, narratives of our society have been controlled by those in power. WikiLeaks set frozen history in motion. Calling it “the rebel library of Alexandria,” Assange explained how WikiLeaks is “the single most significant collection of information about how modern institutions actually behave that doesn’t exist elsewhere, in a searchable, accessible, citable form.”

The defense witness during Assange’s extradition hearing testified on the effect of WikiLeaks in facilitating democracy. The publication of Iraq War Logs revealed the existence of an estimated 15,000 civilian casualties that were previously unknown, restoring dignity for those victims of senseless war. In a written statement, a German citizen Khalid El-Masri who mistakenly was identified as a terrorist and kidnapped and tortured by the CIA, addressed the court about how information released by WikiLeaks helped him to make his own court case and get justice.

Bitcoin has aided WikiLeaks’ quest: To bring the power to shape history into the hands of ordinary people. Appearing in the form of a hologram at The Nantucket Project conference, from inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was arbitrarily detained, Assange spoke of the significance of blockchains, Bitcoin’s underlying technology, particularly in relation to journalism and holding those in power to account.

WikiLeaks’ editor in chief described how Bitcoin’s distributed trust can be used to provide “proof of publishing at a certain time” without central authority, and the whistleblowing site utilized the censorship resistance that it enables to make its publications immune from being altered. As the prosecution of Assange continues, can this technology that helped WikiLeaks restore history now be used to defend the freedom of its founder?

Hijacking Of History

Since registering its domain on October 4, 2006, WikiLeaks has published more than 10 million documents with a pristine record of accuracy. Its publication of documents concerning the U.S. wars in the oil-rich Middle East informed the public about the rise of the military industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his farewell speech in 1961. 

The release of the Collateral Murder video, depicting a U.S. military airstrike killing innocent civilians including two Reuters journalists in a suburb of Iraq, let people around the world see the faces of real victims of the U.S. War on Terror — transnational corporations’ strategic petrodollar hegemony for the conquest of territory.

“Vault 7,” the largest publication of confidential documents on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency exposed the agency’s excessive power with its ability to hack any Android or iPhone, as well as Samsung TVs and even cars, to spy on citizens. It shed further light on militarization of the internet with the penetration of intelligence agencies like the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, that came to light after the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations. Information that was brought back to historical archives revealed the unaccounted power inside the U.S., and it’s hijacking of a republic into a national security and surveillance state.

In Defense Of American Ideals

The original vision of America was articulated by Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. With ideals of equality and liberty for all people, he laid out a foundation of government based on individual rights and the rule of law. Despite the founder’s hypocrisy and contradictions — manifested in the genocide of natives, enslavement of blacks and suppression of women — it has been said that the Declaration of Independence was a promise; the Constitution was the fulfillment.

In recent years, in order to fulfill this promise, the younger generation of America came forward. Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, the source behind WikiLeaks’ release of the largest trove of state secrets in U.S. history, indicated that she risked her personal liberty in order to “have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.” Inspired by her courage, Snowden also engaged in an act of civil disobedience to defend those ideals.

One person’s act of courage becomes contagious, creating waves of whistleblowers. The U.S. Empire came on in full force to attack those truth-tellers, by charging them under the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act of 1917 is the outdated law created after World War I for wartime prosecutions. This is now weaponized to punish the publisher.

Assange has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of conspiring with a source to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his reporting on the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture at Guantanamo Bay. He now faces the risk of extradition to the U.S., where he would receive no trial. If convicted, he would be sentenced for up to 175 years in prison and be held under extremely inhumane conditions through Special Administrative Measures, known as the darkest corner of the U.S. federal prison system.

Self-Evident Truth

On October 31, 2008, before the tsunami of WikiLeaks disclosures began challenging the government’s secrecy, the ideals that inspired American independence were quietly being rekindled. Called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” the white paper written by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto presented a new design for a store of value — a way to preserve the virtue of liberty more securely.

Thomas Jefferson in proclamation of America’s independence to the world wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This self-evident truth described by his words didn’t require any proof of its validity by anyone. It was based on each person’s heart-knowing, recognized by a 17-century prominent French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal when he noted; “the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.”

Acknowledging the intrinsic value of individual liberty enshrined in the document, 56 delegates each through his own volition signed the Declaration. Trusting their truth confirmed in the heart, they united, putting their lives and livelihoods on the line to revolt against the British monarchy. In a similar way, early adopters of Bitcoin, each recognizing the virtue inherent in the technology, came together in freedom to uphold the value of then nascent cryptocurrency.

Whether it be religious doctrines of salvation, campaign slogans of politicians or a promissory note, we no longer want to believe. We want to know — we want to verify the truth on our own. In Bitcoin’s decentralized timestamp, each person through running a full node can participate in validating bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin educator and developer Jimmy Song elucidated on the genius of consensus algorithm at a core of Bitcoin technology:  

Through the imagination of computer science, ideals that were kindled in each individual’s heart can now be proven. The self-evident truth of equality can be made universal.

The Constitution Of The Heart

In Jefferson’s vision of free society, the source of legitimacy is placed in this heart that knows this self-evident truth of equality of all people. It is from this foundation of knowledge that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people are recognized. In Bitcoin, this premise of equality is implemented as a method of decentralization to secure fundamental rights.  

Now, around this protocol of peer-to-peer digital cash, a new model of governance is emerging, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. From wallet providers, merchants, miners and developers, each are obeying the supreme authority within themselves to participate in a grand scientific enterprise of proof-of-work to shape a course of history rooted in the consensus of We The People.

In over 10 years of existence, the Bitcoin protocol has maintained its integrity, showing its resilience against both internal and external attacks. It has survived through the block size debate; heated disputes over scaling that turned into a political battle. Legal scholar and smart contract pioneer Nick Szabo noted that the power of math can withstand brutal force:

In mid September, with hash rates rising to a record high 143.138m terahashes per second, the security of the network is becoming ever stronger. Every 10 minutes, the heart of Bitcoin beats, confirming our social contract through which each of us freely choose to oblige ourselves to one another.

Call For Cryptographic Direct Action

The crisis of legitimacy that came to light through the WikiLeaks publications has shown that the governments of the world have failed to protect human rights, repeating the injuries of the past. The patronage network of global elites with their printing presses infinitely fund their illegal wars, piling up debts and stealing from future generations. These authoritarian regimes have degraded the ideals in the Declaration of Independence, keeping the entire population in a never-ending cycle of death, slavery and the pursuit of misery. 

In order to free people from their control of narratives, Assange, through his work with WikiLeaks, has helped his sources reveal history that belongs to civilization. With the shield of strong cryptography, he fiercely fought to protect whistleblowers and he sacrificed his liberty to defend the network of contagious courage.

As the conscience of truth-tellers became defenseless before the Espionage Act, Assange too has been broken down by the government’s aggressive political prosecution. The evidence read into court on the last week of his extradition hearing included U.S. intelligence sources’ plans to poison or kidnap Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy, as well as their alleged spying activities on Assange and his lawyers.

Now, once again, from London’s maximum-security prison, Assange calls on his fellow cypherpunks: “Cryptography is the ultimate form of nonviolent direct action… It is time to take up the arms of our new world, to fight for ourselves and for those we love.”

As the legal theater at the criminal court in Central London carried on its mockery of justice, showing the tyranny of the Old World of fiat, it is a duty of cypherpunks to write software to build just systems for a New World. 

Cypherunks write code. Sovereign individuals run the code of their own choice and use the nodes to receive transactions to create economic activity. Together, we engage in nonviolent direct action, to take back our own power, as authors of our own lives. Now history has begun. Through our collective cryptographic defense, we can end this illegal prosecution of Julian Assange and truly realize justice and liberty for all people.  

Author’s Note: Get informed about Assange’s extradition case at AssangeDefense.org and learn how to get involved to stop his prosecution at Don’tExtraditeAssange.com. Assange’s fiancée Stella Moris has launched a crowdjustice campaign to fund his legal defense. You can contribute to her cause here and also please consider donating to the WikiLeaks Official Defense Fund.

The post Political Prosecution Of Julian Assange Calls For Nonviolent Cryptographic Defense appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

As A Privacy Pioneer, Edward Snowden Left A Trail For Bitcoin

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This article originally appeared in our Down The Rabbit Hole newsletter. If you want our news and analysis straight to your inbox, make sure you subscribe now!

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The key feature of Bitcoin is that it is free from control by any single entity or third-party authority. I think that one of its most important qualities is the fact that it was introduced and originally fostered by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who hasn’t resurfaced since April 2011. No single person can exert undue influence over the Bitcoin network; Bitcoin has no leader.

But Bitcoin does have its pioneers. There are individuals, like Satoshi (who actually might have been more than one person), who have left trails where there was no path and brought us all to the point where we are today. Learning more about these pioneers is a Rabbit Hole worthy of exploration, which leads to topics as fundamental to Bitcoin as its technical underpinnings, the need for a new form of money and the importance of freedom from authorities. And it’s one we at Bitcoin Magazine are ushering more people into now, as we’re celebrating two somber pioneer anniversaries: The recent six-year anniversary of Hal Finney’s death, and the upcoming eighth anniversary of Ross Ulbricht’s prison sentence.

In addition to these pioneers, I’d like to recognize another who has boldly chartered a trail that speaks to one of the cornerstones of Bitcoin and what this technology means to us all. In 2013, CIA contractor Edward Snowden exposed the presence of multiple, pervasive global surveillance programs run by world intelligence agencies and telecommunications companies, revealing a depth and insidiousness that shocked much of the world. This revelation — and Snowden’s willingness to brave condemnation and ostracization in sharing it — has inspired many of us to seek out better privacy preservation and technologies that are free from government control. It forced countless people to question the role of authority in their lives at a time when everything around them was becoming irreversibly digital. In short, it solidified the need for tools like Bitcoin in the minds of so many.

Bitcoin Magazine hosted Snowden and some of his most direct comments about Bitcoin to date during the Bitcoin 2019 conference. The video from that event will drive interested viewers down a number of Rabbit Holes about surveillance, Bitcoin and privacy tech in general.

With the Snowden Rabbit Hole plunged, his pioneering advocacy will probably motivate you to read more about Bitcoin and surveillance, big data politics and privacy.

So here’s to Edward Snowden: a privacy advocate, American whistleblower and Bitcoin pioneer.

The post As A Privacy Pioneer, Edward Snowden Left A Trail For Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

On September 19, Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin Will Host Full Stack Freedom

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Although it represents a revolutionary step in individuals’ ability to gain financial freedom, Bitcoin in and of itself is not enough to achieve complete sovereignty from third parties or central governments. As many adopters of the technology know, Bitcoin is not private or anonymous.

For many, basic pseudonymity (as well as Bitcoin’s other advantages) is enough. But for some, Bitcoin is merely a tool in the privacy toolbox — something that helps achieve the freedom they seek as part of a larger suite of dissident solutions. The upcoming Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin conference is for those who are interested in a more robust exploration of the technology and tools that can protect freedom.

“The goal is to help people increase their financial and physical sovereignty and freedom,” Ragnar Lifthrasir, an event organizer, explained to Bitcoin Magazine. “To do that, you need more than just one technology, like bitcoin, or one self-defense tool, like firearms. You need a full stack that’s integrated.”

A Full-Stack Freedom Tech Conference

Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin, which is taking place in Austin on September 19 and 20, will explore topics including crypto e-commerce and legal strategies. But as the name implies, the primary focus will rest on Bitcoin — particularly anonymous and surveillance-resistant methods for using it — and firearms — particularly homemade guns and ammo.

Bitcoin-specific content will include presentations from Josh Humphrey, who has developed a privacy-focused framework for bitcoin e-commerce and open-source technology called “Mithril”; DiverterBTC, who will share a comprehensive and easily-understood guide to bitcoin mining and discuss coin mixing as two surveilance-resistant practices in Bitcoin; and Dr. Brian Gross, who will discuss the Blockstream satellite, which is an internet-provider-free way of confirming Bitcoin transactions and maintaining the blockchain.

The event will also feature discussions about DIY guns and ammo from leading designers who circumvent the traditional firearms retail industry by utilizing 3D printing, numeral control (CNC) of machining tools and electrochemical machining to craft their own. Attendees will visit a private gun range for target shooting on the second day of the event.

“Freedom tech is those tools that put control of one’s money, information, communication and meat space security under control of the individual, away from malevolent actors, be they public or private,” Lifthrasir said of the guiding content behind the event. “Freedom tech provides asymmetric defense against more powerful opponents. Guns and bitcoin are my favorite examples.”

Hosting An In-Person Privacy Event In 2020

Like any other in-person event organizer this year, Lifthrasir had to be nimble as he planned Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin. The event was originally scheduled to take place in Portland in June, but Oregon’s governor extended a state of emergency and the venue cancelled their contract. 

The organizers decided to move to a state with more relaxed COVID-19 regulations, and while Lifthrasir emphasized that they are following all government health guidelines, cancelling the event outright is not an option.

“Everyone participating in the conference is allergic to government control, but we’re adapting,” he said. “Come hell or high water, Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin 2020 is happening.”

But in-person restrictions brought on by the spread of coronavirus are not the only unique organizational hurdles faced by Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin. For an event that emphasizes freedom, privacy, the absence of digitally-recorded personal data, etc., ticket registration and in-person attendance require some special considerations.

The event encourages attendees to purchase tickets using BTC, a pseudonym and an email address that’s not tied to any personal information. It is accepting payments through a self-hosted BTCPay Server and WordPress website, to prevent third parties from accessing attendee information. The organizers will not maintain a list of names or pseudonyms to confirm registrants at the door, but leverage the email list instead.

Photography and video at the event are prohibited, except for those who opt into photos. Face masks will be required at the event, and attendees are welcomed to supplement them with additional identity-obfuscating accessories.

Through these methods, Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin attendees will have the chance to celebrate Bitcoin, and their other favorite sovereignty solutions, at an event that’s been tailor made for them.

The post On September 19, Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin Will Host Full Stack Freedom appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Video: How To Use Lily Wallet

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YouTube Video

Multisignature (or multisig) bitcoin wallet authorization requires the use of multiple keys to sign off on transactions, thus providing extra security over funds and dividing effective ownership of bitcoin among multiple people.

Though multisig authorization adds a layer of security to bitcoin wallets, it can be cumbersome and confusing to employ. But now, Lily Wallet, from software engineer Kevin Mulcrone, promises to make it easier than ever to apply multisig management to your bitcoin wallet.

To help Bitcoiners leverage Lily Wallet, Bitcoin Magazine’s Christian Keroles has recorded a walkthrough video. In the video, he explains the following steps:

Setting Up Lily Wallet:

Step 1: Download Lily Wallet through Kevin Mulcrone’s website: https://lily.kevinmulcrone.com/

Step 2: Select “New Account”

Step 3: Name your wallet

Step 4: Plug in your wallet and click “Scan Device” (Coldcard, Ledger, Trezor)

*For Coldcard, you can set up in an air-gapped fashion through Coldcard Navigate 

*Import the xPub file with the “Import From File” button

Step 5: Set the number of signers needed to unlock funds

Step 6: Set a strong password (Bitcoin Magazine highly suggests using a password manager)

How To Spend From Lily Wallet

Step 1: Click on the “Send” tab

Step 2: Paste the address to which you want to send funds

Step 3: Input the amount you wish to send

Step 4: Click “Preview Transaction”

Step 5: If the transaction details look good, click “Sign Transaction”

Step 6: Sign with your independent hardware wallets

Step 7: Click “Send Transaction”

The post Video: How To Use Lily Wallet appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.